This blog is mainly about the spectacular train wreck at The Sacramento Bee and its parent company, the McClatchy Company. But I also post about current events, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, politics, anything else that grabs my attention. Take a look around this blog, hope you enjoy it.

The former Republican vice presidential candidate posted her thoughts Friday on Facebook. Palin says in the America she knows, people won't have to "stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care."

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on Friday demanded for the second time that the Justice Department explain its dismissal of charges against members of the New Black Panther Party who disrupted a Philadelphia polling place during the November elections, saying a previous response was "largely non-responsive" and "paints the department in a poor light."

In a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., the commission said it is "answerable" to the president, Congress and the public to ensure that civil rights laws are enforced and that it had the authority to subpoena witnesses and documents to guarantee laws are being followed by federal agencies, including the Justice Department.

It also accused the department of failing to properly respond to members of Congress who have asked about the decision to dismiss the New Black Panther Party complaint, saying its responses to congressional inquiries also were "non-responsive" and contained "factual errors and ... questionable legal claims."

As so-called journalists negatively depict town hall meeting protesters as an organized angry mob (or worse!), they seem to forget how throughout most of this decade while George W. Bush was president dissent was quite encouraged.

As an example, try to guess who said this in 2003?

"I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you're not patriotic. We should stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration."

Remember a couple of weeks ago when Barack Obama said he owns the economy now?

“I love these folks who helped get us in this mess and then suddenly say, ‘Well, this is Obama’s economy,’” the president said, pointedly deviating from his prepared text.

“That’s fine. Give it to me!”

That was then. Yesterday in Virginia, Obama not only returned to his campaign mode of blaming everything on Bush and the Republicans, he upped the ante by asserting that his detractors should shut up and get out of the way:

“I don’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them just to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don’t mind cleaning up after them but don’t do a lot of talking.”

Mayor Richard Daley today declined to answer questions about a Tribune story on how a member of his Olympic bid team arranged to develop city-owned land near a park that would be transformed for the 2016 Summer Games, potentially positioning himself to cash in if the Games come here.

Developer Michael Scott Sr., an early member of the mayor's Olympic committee, leads a group planning a residential and commercial project on lots kitty-corner from the proposed Douglas Park sporting venues, a location where land values could jump if the city gets the Olympics.

*snip*

Daley's public schedule indicated he would only be taking questions on that topic today (which he did), but a throng of reporters showed up and asked him about Scott's project.

Daley, however, said he would only be taking questions on the city's construction plans.

"I'm sorry I can't answer questions every day. Every day, I do it enough," Daley said.

DETROIT (CNNMoney.com) -- On a side street in an old industrial neighborhood, a delivery man stacks a dolly of goods outside a store. Ten feet away stands another man clad in military fatigues, combat boots and what appears to be a flak jacket.

He looks straight out of Baghdad. But this isn't Iraq. It's southeast Detroit, and he's there to guard the groceries.

"No pictures, put the camera down," he yells. My companion and I, on a tour of how people in this city are using urban farms to grow their own food, speed off.

[snip]

There have been plenty of people struggling in Detroit for a long time. What makes this recession different is the type of people coming in. It's no longer just the homeless, or the really poor. Now it's middle class folks who lost their $60,000-a-year auto job, or home owners who got caught on the wrong side of the real estate bubble.

While Dear Leader incites his union “Brown Shirt” thugs to violence against average voters all over America, look at what the unions and the democrat leaders have done to Detroit and the auto industry they control for the last 50 years?

The worst economic crisis since World War II and the need to sell an ambitious domestic agenda have led President Barack Obama to hold four nationally televised prime-time press conferences in just six months.

Yet those same economic hardships have made the big four television networks increasingly reluctant to preempt their lucrative regular programs at the cost of millions of dollars.

President Obama’s four news conferences, which equal the total held by former President George W. Bush during his entire eight years in the White House, have cost already-hurting television networks an estimated $45 million in lost revenue.

There’s no question President Obama can command an audience. His appearance on “The Tonight Show” gave Jay Leno his best ratings in four years and an interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes” sent the program to its highest viewership in a decade. And NBC’s two-part series in June, “Inside the White House,” drew a combined 18 million viewers.

But the ratings for the prime-time news conferences have slipped as the novelty of President Obama’s presidency wears off.

For example, the President's July 22 press conference drew 24.7 million viewers, 14% fewer than his April 29 press conference and 50% lower than his first news conference on February 9, according to Nielsen.

Barack Obama told a crowd of supporters in Philadelphia back in 2008, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” He added, “That’s the Chicago way.”

Last night in St. Louis, Missouri, a local conservative found out firsthand about the “Chicago way.” Kenneth Gladney, a black conservative from the city, was handing out “Don’t Tread On Me” flags after a Russ Carnahan town hall meeting on health care in Mehlville.

This didn’t go over well with the Obama supporters and union thugs who attended the meeting. They punched him in the face, kicked him in the head, and stomped him on the pavement. So much for hope and change...

THE Democratic Party is pan icking, lashing out like a cornered animal, all because its effort to take over the health-care industry is coming apart like so much wet toilet paper.

Nancy Pelosi, who will get her own bound volume in the annals of asininity, has outdone herself. When asked by a reporter whether the protests at various town-hall meetings represented legitimate grassroots opposition or were manufactured "Astroturf" stunts, she replied, "I think they're Astroturf. You be the judge. They're carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on health care."

Now this is a pas de trois of dishonesty, slander and idiocy. Not only is Pelosi lying when she says protesters are bringing swastikas to these town halls, not only is she suggesting that American citizens are Nazis for having the effrontery to get in the way of ObamaCare, but she's also saying that the alleged swastikas are obvious proof that these protests are manufactured by slick PR gurus.

How does that work? What public-relations genius says: "OK, we need these protests to seem like an authentic backlash of real Americans. Make sure everyone has enough Nazi paraphernalia!"

Meanwhile, Sen. Barbara Boxer insists the protests have to be fake because the protestors are too "well-dressed." Likewise, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says this is all "manufactured anger" because the protestors -- he calls them the "Brooks Brothers Brigade" -- are too tastefully appointed to be authentic protestors. Apparently only filthy hippies can petition government.

Two scandalous news stories about Swedish medical care -- both from taking the cheapest way out -- by not doing routine brain scans.

Story 1, today: Doctors miss fist-sized brain tumour.

"A Swedish woman has reported four physicians to a national body that assesses medical negligence after they missed a brain tumour the size of a fist."

The docs told this poor woman that it was just her usual headaches, and gave her pain pills.

Story 2. Doctors missed pencil in Swedish boy's brain

Published: 17 Dec 08 12:38 CE

"Two doctors from Karlskrona in southern Sweden have been reprimanded for failing to spot the five centimetre piece chunk of a pencil lodged in the brain of a 14-year-old boy."

Now doctors do make mistakes. But you can't miss a fist-sized brain tumor or a three-inch pencil in somebody's brain if you do routine brain scans. The US has a lot more CAT scan machines and MRIs than Europe because we use them a lot more. In these cases a plain X-ray would have told the story.

The only explanation of these horror stories is that Swedish docs don't do those things routinely.

There is something to be said for defensive medicine. American doctors would send those patients off for brain scans just to make sure they were not going to be sued.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner formally requested that Congress raise the $12.1 trillion statutory debt limit on Friday, saying that it could be breached as early as mid-October.

"It is critically important that Congress act before the limit is reached so that citizens and investors here and around the world can remain confident that the United States will always meet its obligations," Geithner said in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that was obtained by Reuters.

A Treasury spokeswoman declined to comment on the letter.

Treasury officials earlier this week said that the debt limit, last raised in February when the $787 billion economic stimulus legislation was passed, would be hit sometime in the October-December quarter. Geithner's letter said the breach could be two weeks into that period, just as the 2010 fiscal year is getting underway.

Rep Scott had a four hour meeting on another matter. At the end of the meeting the floor was opened for questions on other matters and a local voter asked about healthcare reform.Scott, screamed at the man and refused to answer his questions.You know, when you are in charge you don't have to listen to the little people.Perhaps Scott went to the white house website and turned the doctor in for being fishy.This arrogant prick should never be serving in Congress.

....Platinum has replaced or laid off six of the Union-Tribune’s top eight managers since taking over, and it cut 18 percent, or 192 people, of the staff three days after the deal was completed. It has also hired consultants to monitor the productivity of reporters and editors and is looking to rent out the top two floors of the newspaper’s headquarters.

Broadcast network television upfront buying for the 2009-10 season is expected to wrap up this week with the five major broadcast networks taking in about $7.2 billion in prime-time ad revenue, down 22 percent from last year’s $9.25 billion.

While the troubled economy played a role in the decline of upfront revenue, with some advertiser budgets lower than last year, and negotiated pricing for ad units down -1 to -7 percent compared to last year, the biggest reason for the disparity was that the networks decided to hold back significantly more ad inventory, planning to sell it during the season in hopes that the economy gets healthier.

NBC's decision to strip "The Jay Leno Show" weeknights at 10 beginning in September was driven by a combination of necessity and savvy -- amounts of each open for debate.

More important, it invites one intriguing, unanswered question about the future of network television: Does the new "Leno" reflect a fluky alignment of Peacock planets, or does it represent a watershed moment in primetime programming?

While stripped shows are about as old as TV itself in daytime and latenight, in primetime they're exceedingly rare. One-time juggernaut "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" returned to ABC for a two-week run Aug. 9, after flaming out earlier this decade when the network expanded it to four nights a week.

NBC Local Media is overhauling its creative services strategy, which will result in substantial layoffs in that department at its 10 owned stations. The downsized creative services departments, headed up by a director at the station level, will get support from centralized media planning and sales marketing teams, along with an outside creative agency that has worked with the group in the past.

The teams complimenting the station staffs will be based in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

An NBC spokesperson did not offer a timeframe for the restructuring.

NBC has made “Locals Only” the theme of its local strategy, recasting the station Websites with celebrity news and insider info about market hotspots.

“Creative services executives at each station will determine their local market branding campaigns and promotion strategies, working closely with a newly formed media and planning strategy group, a division-wide sales marketing team, and an award winning outside creative agency,” the company said in a statement.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin called President Barack Obama's health plan "downright evil" Friday in her first online comments since leaving office, saying in a Facebook posting that he would create a "death panel" that would deny care to the neediest Americans.

"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care," the former Republican vice presidential candidate wrote.

"Such a system is downright evil," Palin wrote on her page, which has nearly 700,000 supporters. She encouraged her supporters to be engaged in the debate.

Anyone wondering what AARP is really about? They have had an agenda from the start. They may have tipped their hand too early. I hope every senior dumps AARP before they help Obama take from seniors in the name of saving money to give to illegal aliens instead.

This is a good article with AARP information the Lame Stream Media would never tell us. http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=334537436070333

Excerpt: (Contributions from the AARPers ruling class.)AARP CEO Rand maxed out for Obama in 2008, giving $4,600 to the president's campaign committee and $4,300 to the Obama Victory Fund, a joint effort between the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee.AARP general counsel Joan Wise gave $1,000 to Obama, AARP project manager Beth Lazur gave $1,500, strategy consultant Joseph Liu gave $2,300, speechwriter Erica Nash-Thomas gave $2,350 and consultant Bryan Rawlings gave $1,000.

And the lies and distortions go on. Forty years from now, assuming the brain-dead right-wing zealots don't succeed in blocking it this year, Health Security will be as popular as Medicare now is (40 years after the same types of lies were used to oppose it), and Social Security now is (70 years after the same types of lies were used to oppose it). And those who believe and repeat the lies will be regarded with amazement: Who, after all, could possibly be against the security of knowing that you won't lose your insurance if you lose your job, and the basic humanity of everyone sharing the costs and risks for care that any one of us could need at any unforeseen time?

Trapped in their vacuum of ideas, too many Republicans continue to display an astounding ability to believe utter nonsense, even when faced with facts that contradict it.

A Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll released last Friday found that 28 percent of Republicans don’t believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States and another 30 percent are still “not sure.” That’s nearly 6 out of 10 Republicans refusing to accept a basic truth. Then again, this shouldn’t surprise me. According to a Gallup poll released last summer, 6 in 10 Republicans also said they thought that humans were created, in their present form, 10,000 years ago.

Let’s face it: This is no party of Einsteins. Really, it isn’t. A Pew poll last month found that only 6 percent of scientists said that they were Republicans.

Democrats should be leading this discussion. Instead, they’re losing control of it. That’s unfortunate because the debate is too important to be hijacked by hooligans.

So many seniors watched the liberals kill off Terri Schiavo. Why it was justified to starve her to death, she was of no use to anyone. Wasn’t that the case the ghoulish Democrats made? Now seniors could be facing a similar fate, and I am wondering if anyone wants to buy their vote back?

When Republican rallies began to get out of hand during the presidential race last year, responsible voices spoke up, including John McCain, whose running mate was egging on the fringe right. The grievances then centered on Barack Obama "palling around with terrorists" and wanting to tax poor Joe the Plumber. Now the conservative faithful are claiming that our president will heartlessly euthanize your grandmother, tax you up the kazoo, and take away your choice of doctor. And this time there are no responsible Republican voices calling for a halt to the mob tactics disrupting Democratic town meetings around the country.

There's plenty of evidence that the seemingly spontaneous eruptions are orchestrated by conservative interest groups in Washington, in the same way that the antitax tea parties were made to seem like a grassroots uprising earlier this year. The public relations and lobbying firms that specialize in generating the kind of public outcry we're seeing have a name for it; they call it AstroTurf. And it works, attracting media coverage disproportionate to the minority of a minority it represents and fooling Americans into thinking there's a full-scale revolt underway.

The right sees an opportunity during the August recess to take a hammer and really pound home their message. All manner of poison could be unleashed with media loudmouths like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh encouraging race and class resentment. The few traditional Republicans left who want to build a more diverse party stay silent because the fanatically passionate are the GOP's foot soldiers; without them, the party would lose its base.

Politicians in swing districts who vote for Obamacare will be signing their political death warrant If the libs are successful in ramming health care through congress on an illegitimate procedural trick they will be out of power for a generation. Vote for healthcare...get a new job on election day.Leave politics forever. The only libs left will be the

Oh goodie, an article by the liberal Democrat, Eleanor Clift. She has been in-the-tank with the rest of the corrupt media. It is good the trolls are pointing out the liberal media losers today. ‘Know your enemies’ still applies. Watching the losers circle the wagons is a great Sunday pastime. A rally of more smoke and mirrors strategy by the socialists. Too bad the game is nearly over for Obama, it was just getting interesting.

If the democrats healthcare arguments were so sound do you think they would be sending out goon squads to supress those who disagree with them?Do you think they would be collecting information on "fishy" ideas?Do you think the President would be trying so hard to prevent discussion.No! If they had a good argument, they would me making it instead of using Chicago thug tactics.

The Congressional Budget office says that Obama's cost reduction promises are lies.So the Dems try to support socialized medicine by blaming the insurance companies.Why should we spend a trillion and a half dollars and wreck our health care system to accomplish insurance reform?It makes no sense.

Isn’t it a wonder that the Democrats that thought ACORN and the Black Panthers were just doing what they should be doing during this past election, find taxpayers doing what they should be doing, speaking out against higher taxes, are deserving of every derogatory name they can dredge up? I don’t think the Democrats fully understand the power of the Internet. The liberal media is in a deserved death spiral, and can’t carry the water for the Democrats much longer. Democrats will never control the bloggers that will tell the truth. Let the sunshine in!

I agree with the post about AARP. They are Obama's public relations arm. If you're a member, drop your AARP membership and let them know why. They're run by far left lunatics and are trying to strongarm members into doing Obama's bidding. AARP, SEIU and ACORN are Obama's storm troopers.

Re: “Eleanor Clift is a partisan hack.” You are too kind, she is brain-dead, and that goes beyond being a partisan hack. She hasn’t written anything of value for years. As more people realize what the liberal media has been doing for decades, the more these old hacks will retire in shame. The damage they have done to the USA will take years to undo, BUT, it can and must be undone.

AARP's members are royally pissed at its health care push for Obama and his henchmen. How can you be so wrong representing your membership? Every AARP official should resign. Obama will give them White House jobs.

‘Impeach Obama’ bumper stickers are selling like hotcakes. McClatchy can improve their income by selling them as more Oboob trinkets, with the rest of their phony garbage. I wonder how the Barry/Bill Ayers books are selling these days?

What happened to the Code Pink loons? The war goes on, and Obama broke his promise, they must be enraged. Where did the loons go, on vacation? Also, when was the last peace protest? Talk about manufactured groups! I await the next Cindy Sheehan clone to stalk the Bam over the loss of her son. She can wait outside his Chicago digs, and we can watch her every move. Until she runs against Mayor Daley that is, of course, then she will be dumped posthaste.

Well the liberal media must care. They are still reporting her every move and word. The media tries to destroy what they cannot control. More people are realizing that every moment with the Obama’s socialistic healthcare scheme. Go anti-tax Americans go!

The medical people are finally alerted to the Obama socialist healthcare plan. Watching sorry career, corrupted, politicians spin a losing healthcare plan, ought to jar everyone awake. The doctors are awake now, and that will make a difference! The congress dopes want us to sacrifice while they order luxury jets for their family junkets on taxpayers dimes. Good grief, can this be really happening?

Fox Business News had their usual two conservatives, two liberal panel discussion about the luxury jet order by congress. Even the two liberals did not try to cover for the out-of-touch leeches that authored the jet requests. The number of travel junkets by congress has grown by leaps and bounds. I guess the ruling class needs these little outings, while taxpayers stand in unemployment lines. Geeesh!

DISSENT IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF PATRIOTI… No, wait, that bumper sticker expired January 20th. Under the stimulus bill, there's a new $1.3 trillion bills-for-bumpers program whereby, if you peel off old slogans now recognized as environmentally harmful ("QUESTION AUTHORITY"), you can trade them in for a new "CELEBRATE CONFORMITY" sticker, complete with a holographic image of President Obama that never takes his eyes off you.

...Elanor Clift has agreed with every leftie idea no matter how goofy for two decades. She is a partisan hack...

Substitute "McClatchy Watch posters" for "Eleanor Clift" and "far-right" for "leftie" and you pretty well summarize this blog. So I guess if it's all right for MW posters to be brain-dead it's all right for Clift.

The stupid Dems even yelled at a doctor for asking questions about the deadly health care plan. Like an impaired elected official can even discuss a bill they can’t understand, and didn’t read. How dumb can you get?

The Democrats guarantee their ouster from power if their Purple Shirts (SEIU) thugs start pounding on citizens during townhall meetings. It's only going to take a handful of beatings to kill just about everything Obama wants. If you thing the public is mad now....

9:41 AM You are so lame, don‘t you have an alternate line? Go ahead and jump the liberal shark you ride. You want to live free, obviously, or you would not come here to read conservative posts. Go ahead pal, jump, you are halfway home already.

Taxpayers are asking Obama if they could be waiting in line for a doctors’ appointment behind illegal aliens? Guess what? They very well could be waiting weeks for appointments, just like they do in Canada and the UK. Adding all those millions of illegals, and no more doctors, is a part of the plan we don’t hear about.

Speaking of Cindy Sheehan, how did a nut job like her get more than 15minutes of fame? The liberal press was so blatant in their biasness, and there were few honest journalists left to tell the truth, and expose them. Maybe bankruptcy will stop them, one can only hope.

The guild is probably deleting post after post if members are stating how they really feel. I would not want to be any part of the union types we see beating up old people today. Obama is making unions a them vs. us deal, and the unions look really thuggish. I have never heard more negative comments about union members in my life. Thugs, goons, brown shirts, and worse.

Time for you to take a Blue Pill or whatever nonsense the Muslim ape is saying this week.

Your statement above speaks volumes about the type of creature you are. Is it hard to type with your hood on? Guess I'm glad your spending your time here spouting off nonsense instead of mingling with the rest of us humans. Your warped views are on the way out....

The Modesto Bee (like many other McClatchy papers SUCKS). There was a head on collision yesterday and nothing in the online edition. I haven't checked the printed paper, but perhaps it was located in a town 25 miles from Modesto it was of no importance, although it did happen on the major hwy 108/120 to Yosemite.

Obama is no longer treading water, he is in the deep end of the pool without his lifejacket. See the Drudge Report.--- OBAMA: 'I don't want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess'... ---Obama is talking about Bill (Fix me a cigar) Clinton no doubt. Just ask about Clinton and the CRA program. Ask Chris Dodd, and Barney Franks about almost anything they backed, but the liberal media ‘knows nothing’ and resorts to the lame, blame Bush game. The internet will get the truth out. Once the dishonesty dam breaks, the out rushing of truth is difficult to stop.

3:25 PM, Why don’t you discuss the subject and not badmouth the poster? It that concept beyond you? That must be a pattern to try and disrupt a blog, but what sort of person can’t stand to let another have their say? Oh right, an Obama cult member.

AARP completely eliminated debate over Obana's Deathcare plan on its website. They had a forum on it until the majority of the comments were negative. Now it's Obama propaganda and no chance to comment.

And if Kevin censored as much as the trolls on here deserve this blog would be a lot better off.

Unfortunately is doesn't take a genius to read through these threads almost everyday and see there isn't a level "playing field" for the comments. Yes, it is Kevin's blog and he controls it but it is pretty sad that he deletes posts that berate "his" side (that's you right wingnut jobs if you hadn't clued in) but lets some of the racist, vile comments by the "enlightened" rightees. The only solace in all of this is that you creeps are in the minority. Example: you have a roomful of babies. all are quite and playing going about their business except for the one throwing a red faced illogical temper tantrum. who gets noticed? it's the same for the sore losers who put all your faith and hope in a tired old man and a psychotic unstable woman actually thinking they could win the Presidency. so keep crying, complaining and stomping your feet, those of us that are reasonably stable just keep laughing at your shenanigans.

There ya go. Exhibit #1Post deleted by Blog Administrator 7:19amNo profanity. Just a difference of opinion from the right wingnuts....thank god there are only three or four of you who really post to this site......

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